Advocatus Atheist

“If you have enough Faith, God will give you wisdom.”  God will give me wisdom because Faith. Really? A Christian actually said this to me on my Atheist blog. I can't help but feel compelled to respond to it. I mean, how could I not? So I shall.   **As for the accrual of wisdom, this comes through study and experience and the reflection of both. Not, contrary to what you believe, based on the amount of faith you hold in something. I can have faith that the world is flat all I want—I can have heaps and heaps of it—but it still won’t make it true. Meanwhile, ignoring the truth that the world is actually spherical won’t make me any wiser, but it might make me the fool for having faith in incorrect propositions and palpably false beliefs. Faith is quite useless in providing you things of practical worth. Faith is just a feeling. A feel good feeling. A faithy feeling. Have faith all you want to if believing in things simply for the sake of believing in things is your g...

Atheism, it seems to me, is the most reasonable conclusion to arrive at if one has thoroughly given their best, most honest, estimation of the available evidence. Beyond this there are a series of basic objections to the God/god(s) concepts as commonly conceived. Because these conceptualizations often conform to predictable patterns they are, in all likelihood, demonstrative of an underlying sequacity. I'll let you be the judge of whether or not God/god(s) are tenable concepts or not, but if you were in doubt, here are some of the strongest objections, in my opinion. Philosophical Objections to God 1. Until God can properly demonstrated any description is, in point of fact, not describing anything real. Therefore, the term "God" becomes a meaningless definition for anything yet to be verified as extant.  2. The definition "God" as used by most theologians and religious believers refers to a concept and describes th...

There is a Buddhist Zen parable about the teacher Zengetsu, from the Tang Dynasty (China), who wrote down twelve maxims for his students to reflect upon. Basically one maxim for each month of the year. I have collected them and have broken them down even further, by topic, to get fifteen total. These fifteen Zen maxims cover moral and social etiquette, and serve as an organized list to think about improving oneself--sort of a Ten Commandments, except that unlike the Mosaic Commandments found in the Bible, these Zen maxims actually do deal with morality in a practical way which can be applied to our lives. You might even call them The Zen Commandments . Zengetsu's Fifteen Maxims 1. When witnessing the good action of another encourage yourself to follow his example. 2. Hearing the mistaken action of another, advise yourself not to emulate it. 3. Even though alone in a dark room, be as if you were facing a noble guest. 4. Express your feelings, but become no more express...

Christians will often take offense when one draws valid comparisons between their religion (Christianity) and cults. But the truth of the matter remains, at the very center of Christian faith are the teachings of a radical cult leader. Jesus taught what most cult leaders typically do—he told his followers to give up their possessions and do as he did. He instructed his acolytes to abandon their families and follow him on nothing more than a whim. Furthermore, he asked them to forsake their individuality for the brotherhood, and he told them, as cult leaders often do, that the end of the world was nigh. Then, in the true spirit of the cultist, Jesus had himself untimely killed.  The Christian’s ears should burn with Christ’s command to follow him and do as he did, since his life met with a gruesome and untimely demise. Oblivion, if you will. A common characteristic, I think you’ll find, among death cults both past and present. But alas, Christians like to say “He died for us,” so...

Part 1: Properties of Belief, Faith, and Assumption Philosophers distinguish between beliefs, assumptions, andfaith based propositions, and rightly so, since all three are different.Although I’ve detailed the subtle differences before, it's worth repeating. There is a big difference between assumptions and beliefs,even as the two are mutually dependent on one another. I would like to caution that it is probably unwise to conflate the two. One acts upon the other. This causal relationship shows that they are not one and the same. Belief is, technically speaking, *holding a proposition to be true (this is the dictionary definition). In other words, one makes an a priori assumption in the veracity of a belief (without actually knowing whether it is true or not). So beliefs require this basic a priori assumption to even get off the ground. But aside from this, the assumption the belief relies upon is provisional . Meaning, that the assumption will likely...

The YouTuber PrplFox rocks. He explains how Christian belief is crippling to the self, and explains that there is life after Jesus in a very inspirational video about his own deconversion. Please watch this video.

In the controversy surrounding the historical Jesus of Nazareth, Christian apologists often will claim that there is incontrovertible evidence that the Gospel Jesus existed. They will often cite names like Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, Lucian of Samosa, and the writings of Sextus Julius Africanus. A few brief observations: Tacitus was born in 56 CE in Rome. Pliny the Younger was born in 61 CE in Como. Lucian of Samosa was born in 125 CE in Syria. Sextus Julius Africanus was born in 160 CE. While these men each do make reference to a Christian Messiah, i.e. Christ, it is usually in the context of Christians who followed Christ. In his Annals , for example, Tacitus mentions the Christians were named after the Christus, whom they followed, and he goes on to inform that Pontius Pilate arrested and tried the Christus for inciting rebellion, and thus put an end to a terrible superstition which arose at that time. So, once again, it is merely a report that Christians belie...